@@joshuascholar3220 In the AVGN episode about Wizard of Oz Dorothy isn't able to jump on top of a shiny thing because its part of the background, so she jumps in front of it, but she can jump on top of an hourglass that is partially hidden behind said background. Same thing happens to some enemies that are clearly at least a yard away in the background, but still make contact damage to you. And landing on objects is very hard because you can only land on them if you drop from top of them. If you try to land at an angle you will go trough them.
That's called the rule of funny. There's also the rule of cool and the rule of awesome. Basically, if something is funny, cool, or awesome, the universe is more likely to allow it to happen.
But usually it's funny when cartoon physics are an exaggeration of real life physics. If it's just ignoring the laws of physics you don't get many laughs. The rule of thumb with cartoon physics is that they are an exaggeration of reality which makes it feel believable despite the technicalities obviously being nonsense.
In many stories, Tom is actually friends with Jerry. He's simply forced to pretend doing something about what the homeowners consider a pest. If he refuses, he'll be replaced by another cat. In most movies, they're either friends from the start or enemies turned allies.
Neither are the bad guys. Tom is just doing his job as a cat and Jerry just wants a place to live. However, sometimes one is just minding their business and the other one provokes them for no reason, and that's when one of them becomes the bad guy
Theirs a lot of T&J cartoons wear Tom gets the short stick even though Jerry started it. I mean, sure 8of10 Tom’s being a dick, but those 2of10, jetty’s being just plain cruel.
@@sycho-tech5104And there are times where Tom was coerced or employed into catching Jerry because of his owner or another party who doesn't want Jerry around.
I remember an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures (where the premise is they're studying to become like their Looney Tuned mentors) where they lampshade the gravity bit. They cross a chasm by walking off a cliff and telling each other not to look down. I chalk it up to them being young and inexperienced, not yet learning they should only use that for causing or exacerbating problems, not solving them.
Toon Bridges, as they called them there. Also on Bonkers, Lucky Piquel was also able to abuse provided he mantra'd how he shouldn't look down over and over.
That appeared in a Guardians of the Galaxy tv show as well. They were in a cartoon logic pocket dimension thing, and Rocket used this exact logic to cross a chasm
The real explanation is that the rule only applies to deus ex machina so if it's established before (or even roughly at the same time) it can be valid.
If I recall correctly, Wile E. Coyote did catch the Road Runner once, but he didn't have any idea on what to do next because he never thought he'd ever do it.
@@solaris9426 I think it was a time where the Roadrunner grew to Godzilla size or Wile E was reduced to mouse size. I remember him going like Aha! and grabbing the bird's ankle, looking up, maybe Roadrunner looking down unfazed, then holding up signs like "Well I finally caught him" "Now what do you want me to do with him?" Edit: 1980 Merrie Melody cartoon "Soup or Sonic", ends with the signs, "Okay, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him." and "Now what do I do?"
@@monke7919 Coyote wins in a total of 5 episodes across the entirety of Roadrunner cartoons. So, no. Everything resets as always. The show is episodic, not serialized.
Those stunts were real. Not even joking. There's interviews with the stunt actors and everything. It was *_wild_* back in the day. The director even said he was a little scared of them because they'd just actually do those crazy stunts and just get back up like it was nothing.
@@EmilyDugan-re2wg i'm not saying they weren't real. I'm saying marv taking an iron to the face and coming out with an imprint on his face or harry burning his hand on the doorknob and coming out with just an imprint on his hand is cartoon logic.
Everyone makes these videos about how the hell they survive all these traps. And here I am thinking about it and I go "wait a minute! this is all looney tunes!" Once you realize that, everything makes sense.
Let's also not forget the "Plausible Impossible", the rule that it has to SEEM explainable and be grounded in rules of reality, despite being impossible. "The most hilarious comedy is grounded in reality."
Tom and Jerry episodes were at their peak when the two teamed up to get a common goal accomplished. Not always the funniest episodes, but they genuinely work well together and complement each other in ways that are genuinely wholesome and inspiring.
That show in its own way is self-reflecting because of the instances when the classic Looney Tunes characters show up and teach the new generation the rules of being a "toon".
There are some philosophical ideas that state that things only exist because we agree they exist. Theoretically, under such a system,gravity would only work if you believe you SHOULD be effected by gravity
A pretty good video! Also, I would like to add that another aspect that determines cartoon logic is the attitude that a character has about their lot in life, which also influences how many negative things will happen to them. Donald Duck becomes a butt-monkey because of his short temper and being prone to brute force problems that cause his notorious bad luck. Tom becomes one when he wants to enjoy his life in bliss all the time, but gets constantly interrupted by annoyances done by Jerry which culminates in him wrecking the peace he could have had by simply not making it an issue (though that depends on the cartoon since he sometimes gets forced into it). A character like Bugs Bunny doesn't often become a butt-monkey because he is the most self-aware toon that can adapt to what is going on in the moment, so he understands how to bend reality to his will. Sometimes characters that are completely clueless about what's going on around them like Mr. Magoo don't even get affected by the cartoon world since they are too detached and naive to be affected by it. In a way it's a bit of a reflection of reality, since your personality can vastly change the outcome of what happens in your life. The difference being that cartoons exaggerate those in several ways to make the feelings more bombastic and by making people laugh at others' and possibly their own shortcomings.
The clip shown at 8:10 was literally the first thing I thought about when you said "As soon as a cartoon character feels like they are going to win, it comes back around to bite them, every single time."
I wanted to make a cartoon with a combination of realistic physics and cartoon physics (from both eastern and western animations, as well as others), both of which have a certain scientifically-tangible order to them, which most of the characters use to their advantage and cleverly optimise for practical outcomes. Then I see this. Great now I'm hopeless Well, since this is about to get 100 likes (at 99), I typed some more detailed thoughts about it in a reply. I've come to a compromise which I wrote at the bottom
A more internally consistent explanation for cartoon physics that you could use from a Watsonian perspective is that it follows whatever the character in question expects to happen, if only temporarily. If you don't know you're in the air, you'll expect to continue moving forward until you realize your situation, delaying your fall. Roadrunner doesn't know there's a painting in his way, so he can continue on down the imaginary road, but Wile E. Coyote, who set up the trap in the first place and therefore expects it to work, runs into the painting as normal. And so on and so forth.
My main problem regarding the insanity of cartoon physics is that really I want my cartoon/animation series to cover lots of topics, including technical/scientific and complex/realistic ones, and if I get too wacky, I'll either have to make the cartoon physics a non-diegetic design choice, which in some cases I don't want since I want the characters to be able to exploit them, or I'll just have to accept that it's the way things are and create a convoluted system of everything, biological and systemic, that attempts to work around it, and even though it might be pretty farfetched, I don't really want it to be _too_ unrealistic, in spite of all the fancy stuff it'll have. I want it to be a decent reflection of troth reality, fantasy and futurism. In particular, here are my thoughts about some points that the video covers: -Emotional truth. I don't need cartoon physics to convey those. In fact, I've imagined how I could communicate extremely intense emotions without thinking about those at all, involving stuff like visceral sound design, expressions, behaviours and visual representations. So the cartoon aspects would just be supplementary, and they'd all be plausible to some degree. -Butt-monkeys. I do want some characters to feel that way, but having a lot of characterisation focused on this would lead to a lot of tropic one-dimensionality with one character being consistently hurt and garnering sympathy. Making it a diegetic mechanic would also substantiate the notion that the world is out to get them, and while I do want to cover this for some characters, I want to have a diverse variety of changing perspectives, including experiences of unbalanced treatment. -Karma. The bad guys need to be capable, generally competent and actually dangerous in some way, because otherwise there's not a credible threat, and there's nothing for us to learn for or from overcoming them, so I'll only apply this when it would realistically make sense with intrinsic consequences that can be reasonably ignored or unforeseen. Also, I do want to communicate the existence and dynamics of unfairness, including cases of systematic oppression, so this is generally something I'll skip. -And overconfidence. There are many adults who suffer from it (and should do in the series), and not many of the characters would be significantly mentally challenged (i.e. total idiots who don't learn when something is unignorably obvious). If the rule applied universally, they would have learnt about the principle when they were a young child and worked with it, either by adopting the appropriate humility and/or caution, or anxiety, paranoia, low self-esteem, and overall poor mental health, which would also lead to the perception that the world is out to get them. Some characters should also be raised with it, fraudulently out of living a childhood of pandered luxury (who can be proven wrong by being introduced to tough situations), or substantially by being critical and competent (who can be proven wrong by being overconfident about the universality of patterns and systems they've identified), in order to foster the perception that everything goes their way if they just persist enough. Not only that, but if it was universally punished, evolution would have disfavoured it, and since it exists, it needs to at least appear substantial to many people. It should be more like a rubber band than a universal bug-patcher, and having it that way would pay off a lot more at the end. So, I decided to make a compromise. I'll make a list of cartoon principles and events, and for the main world I'll include anything that doesn't cause anything significantly outlandish to happen. Those things would include major body transformations and disfigurations (cartoon-wise), sudden unexplained changes of how physical phenomena work based solely on the characters (discriminatory physics), and so on. However, I will make a lot more exceptions in dream sequences, which will be the boundary where wacky cartoon physics and surrealism can shine - though there will be some level of sense, morality and psychological nuances to them, since everything that happens in the foreground of a story must have some relevance. For that reason, many of the dreams will be consciously administered with technology for things like therapy and recreational purposes, so it can serve the characters and the story, rather than just have the natural neural network splutterings you generate in REM sleep :P
The overconfidence is a nice way to view the cartoon physics though the earlier part of the video didn't answer much. Some cartoons didn't have butt-monkeys or were full of them and the cartoon physics can just occur without teaching the characters anything (like "Have you got any Castles"). Also there's a Wile E Coyote gag where he goed through the painting but not the roadrunner
I think the classic roadrunner tunnel gag is probably simillar to how flash can move so fast he phases through matter and I guess road runner runs at that speed.
AfterDark had a screensaver about the rules of Cartoon Laws of Physics. -Anything falls faster than an ANVIL. -You won't fall unless you look down. etc.
Law of story physics number five: I am in complete agreement with this one. Used to see this happen a lot in Richie Rich. Dollar would always think of a scenario, but during its execution, it never turns out how he thought. Like, why would an animator animate the same thing twice in a row?
I remember an episode of Tiny Toons. A rare moment of the cast attending class at the school the intro alludes to taking place. Porky was teaching the phenomenon of walking off a ledge and they would stay in midair until looking down, demonstrating as he walked off his desk, looked down, and fell about 2 1/2 feet to the ground
I think cartoon physics are a metaphor for "shit happens" in life. Cartoon physics is unpredictable, and so are many things in life like the natural environment and public opinion that we can't control. These things are inherently neutral, they may push you forward, and they may set you back, but our attitude to these factors will ultimately determine what they are. If someone overestimates themselves, and think they can control the uncontrollable, they will inevitably find the natural world to be against them in everything they do.
I know one wile e coyote where he caught the roadrunner in the “impenetrable box” But when he tried to eat the roadrunner, he realized: the road runner is in the impenetrable box. So he opens it, and somehow falls in getting stuck. Well he caught it, but couldn’t rly do anything about it after the fact.
Alternatively, since gravity only seems to assert itself when a character looks down, they could theoretically walk across a gap by just not looking down.
@@solaris9426 Thats how bridges are made, by confident jackass's who think " I'm so good at this 'humidity' thing, I don't even need this bridge, but I'm building it because my jackass friends need it! "
So long as the audience expects you to fall, you won't, but if you subvert the audience's expectations, convince them that falling doesn't apply to you, you come crashing down. The road runner for example. Coyote sets up a trap where the road runner will surely fall. Cartoon physics disallows it. But when Coyote tries to follow road runner, the audience and Coyote has no idea what to expect, so he falls.
This is wild, the fact that there’s actually structure to the cartoons. I can appreciate this as an adult and I will definitely view cartoons with a different perspective now. Great video.
Road Runner cartoons had a literal set of rules about how they were to be written. They broke from that exactly once that I'm aware of, because that was to establish the gag being "Well, now I caught the Road Runner, what now?" as an acknowledgement of the rule that Wile E can't catch the Road Runner. Among others I remember are: The Road Runner can only cause harm to Wile E by saying 'Meep Meep' and the results there of. (Thus limiting the Road Runner while keeping a running gag going.) Wile E fails either because of Acme products backfiring or his own bad decisions, barring the above. (Thus keeping the fault for failure from being pure luck.) It must always be clear that Wile E Coyote could stop at any time, he is always the one keeping the chase going. (Thus ensuring it is his fault.)
I’m glad you made this video! As I look back on my own experiences in the last decade, I know that the spiritual side of this very thing has come to fruition ten times over. This video may be focusing on cartoons, but the choice we’ve made absolutely affect our lives in these very same ways, just usually it’s internal and not physical. The cartoons describe how we feel as if it were physically observable.
Another common feature of a cartoon antagonist is that they intend to kill and eat the good guy, so that's a very appropriate karmic mark against them imo
You should watch the original Tiny Toon Adventures series. They explain a lot about cartoon mechanics as they learn at the Looniversity. Also, it is usually the underdog who has the advantage. The Prey has the advantage over the predator; the cute one has the advantage over the scary one. The best ones will still lose sometimes, like Bugs Bunny & Mickey Mouse. The worst ones never loose, like Screwy Squirrel & Slap Happy Slappy.
Great piece! Adding to that, i also thought that you can always continue when you're high above the ground, but when you look down, that's when fear kicks in and ruin everything
"Why do cartoons do this", you ask? Well, that's easily answered. *Because it's funny.* These impossible physics are often the punchline to a joke. That's why. *Not everything has a deeper hidden meaning behind it.* Take the scene at (1:22) Bugs standing tied on the diving board - while Sam is sawing off the board. That scene creates tension. How do you release this tension again? By letting Sam fall into his own trap _(quite literally in this case)._ That's called a "comic relief". What would have been the alternative in that scenario? Letting Bugs fall into the abyss? Where would be the fun in that? The only possibility to save that scene (Bugs falling), would have been to let something happen during his fall, which - _on the one hand_ - saves him, and - _on the other hand_ - punishes Sam. But all that would have needed to be drawn and animated. Why waste time and resources on such an elaborate scene, if you can reach your goal _(= giving your audience a good laugh)_ by simply letting the impossible happen _(the board with Bugs stays up, the diving tower with Sam falls down)?_
This was a very nostalgic video for me. It brought back memories of so many Saturday mornings during the 80’s. I don’t think I’ve had many times in my life as happy as those Saturday mornings were.
A popular theory states that Tom and Jerry are actually best friends, and Tom’s owner wants him to catch and kill mice, so Tom pretends to try his best, but he is actually letting Jerry get away. But why is Tom not catching Jerry? Well, they’re best friends, and best friends protect each other. If Tom visibly never tried, he would be replaced with a cat that would actually WANT to kill Jerry.
Well that depends.Considering the cartoon is not episodic.Most would have Tom and/or jerry actively trying to kill each other even if Tom's owner told them.A main example is Hatch up your troubles.If chopping up your buddy with a axe is friendly,The shooting their nephew is just plain good will.Again these shorts can change/depnend and that's just a theory
@@krealyesitisbeta5642 *Tom* = (Any of his major enemies like Enel, Lucci, Doffy, or Kaido.) *Jerry* = Luffy (The mouse who his enemies think of as an annoying "rat")
Amazing video, wish it was a little longer. I've never thought about the fact that cartoons NEED to exaggerate their actions in order to help the viewer empathize and understand the feelings of the character.
The gravity thing makes no sense as every character including the butt-monkey will realize they’ve made the mistake but won’t be able to simply float back to safety.
In a lucid dream, you can do anything you genuinely believe you can do. The moment you question your own ability, a more realistic perspective kicks in.
you truly deserve the sub, immaculate work, truly inspiring and uplifting seeing small creators make such awesome and well produced content, gives me the boost of hope i need
Goofy is almost an anti-butt-monkey... He constantly brings trouble on himself but somehow the crazy sequence of coincidences that ensues ends up working out in his favour.
I personally always felt sorry for Tom and found the cartoon Tom and Jerry very unfair towards Tom. I mean, most of the time Tom is just trying to have a peaceful time and Jerry is the one who disturbs him. I'd watch Tom and Jerry just to see an episode where there's some sort of happy ending, in favour of Tom preferably.
My mother was working as a teacher in the kindergarten here in the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia back then), and she said that when they took children to the cinema to see Tom and Jerry the first time many years ago, all the children left the cinema crying. Because they were not used to see such violent scenes in cartoons before.
i think this is what sorta gets under my skin when it comes to this kinda slapstick stuff the main takeaway in this is that the second you start believing in yourself the entire universe wants you dead
Actually, I can vouch for gravity not existing until the character looks down. I was once climbing a wooden ladder and a rung broke. I noticed the rung was broken and I was not falling. I was able to look around and take the whole scene in. I start to fall after a moment, but only after I looked down. Before I looked down, it honestly seemed like I was standing on thin air as I was able to notice the rung was broke, know what was about to happen (the fall), notice my position on the ladder and where I should fall, notice my surroundings, etc. Based on that experience, cartoon falling is exactly how I fall.
A rule I've heard a long time ago about cartoon physics is that: "if it's visually possible then it's possible "
The funny thing is that there are video games like that.
See that ledge half a mile away? You CAN jump to it!
@joshuascholar3220 I am making a cartoon based game and using this video for reference lol
Dip.
@@joshuascholar3220 In the AVGN episode about Wizard of Oz Dorothy isn't able to jump on top of a shiny thing because its part of the background, so she jumps in front of it, but she can jump on top of an hourglass that is partially hidden behind said background. Same thing happens to some enemies that are clearly at least a yard away in the background, but still make contact damage to you. And landing on objects is very hard because you can only land on them if you drop from top of them. If you try to land at an angle you will go trough them.
On modern days seems like "it's funny until someone gets offended" 🫠
I always thought the rule was "they can do anything, as long as its funny"
That's called the rule of funny. There's also the rule of cool and the rule of awesome. Basically, if something is funny, cool, or awesome, the universe is more likely to allow it to happen.
Well, that WAS said in Roger Rabbit, which is very focused on the world of cartoons. I guess there's multiple ways to see it.
Well, the purpose of this video, I guess, is to explain what makes these types of gags funny.
But usually it's funny when cartoon physics are an exaggeration of real life physics. If it's just ignoring the laws of physics you don't get many laughs. The rule of thumb with cartoon physics is that they are an exaggeration of reality which makes it feel believable despite the technicalities obviously being nonsense.
@@solaris9426 yea it still applies it's just a supporting aspect of this video's explanation
I never realized overconfidence is a cardinal sin in cartoons. I have new respect for these classic toons.
So do i. 🤝🤝
It's a part of why pride is the deadliest of sins.
Funny when Jerry is overconfident 😂
"Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." - Buggs Bunny
@@izperehodaDarkest Dungeon quote lol
To be fair about Tom, there are plenty moments where he isn't even the villain and Jerry is the one antagonising the situation.
True
And also he is a cat, that’s literally his job
I agree, that's one reason why I can't watch Tom & Jerry.
@@darwinskeeper421I so agree. Jerry never fails to make me annoyed.
In many stories, Tom is actually friends with Jerry. He's simply forced to pretend doing something about what the homeowners consider a pest. If he refuses, he'll be replaced by another cat. In most movies, they're either friends from the start or enemies turned allies.
Neither are the bad guys. Tom is just doing his job as a cat and Jerry just wants a place to live. However, sometimes one is just minding their business and the other one provokes them for no reason, and that's when one of them becomes the bad guy
Squidward loses his "butt monkey" status whenever he actually sides with Spongebob.
Customer: "Where's my drink?"
Spongebob: "... But you didn't order a drink."
and intensifies his status when Spongebob sides with him.
in fairness to Tom, Tom gave as good as he got he does have wins under his belt
Yes, when Jerry gets overconfident
They both lost in the end...
Not counting the modern reboots at least
@@mrexists5400modern has more alliances against a third party/the pestering feels friendlier
Theirs a lot of T&J cartoons wear Tom gets the short stick even though Jerry started it. I mean, sure 8of10 Tom’s being a dick, but those 2of10, jetty’s being just plain cruel.
@@sycho-tech5104And there are times where Tom was coerced or employed into catching Jerry because of his owner or another party who doesn't want Jerry around.
I remember an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures (where the premise is they're studying to become like their Looney Tuned mentors) where they lampshade the gravity bit. They cross a chasm by walking off a cliff and telling each other not to look down.
I chalk it up to them being young and inexperienced, not yet learning they should only use that for causing or exacerbating problems, not solving them.
Toon Bridges, as they called them there.
Also on Bonkers, Lucky Piquel was also able to abuse provided he mantra'd how he shouldn't look down over and over.
The Universe also does not want to kill a child.
@@GunSpyEnthusiast Plucky Duck and other Tiny Toons modeled after the fall guys or villainous Looney Toons would like to have word with you. 😋
That appeared in a Guardians of the Galaxy tv show as well. They were in a cartoon logic pocket dimension thing, and Rocket used this exact logic to cross a chasm
The real explanation is that the rule only applies to deus ex machina so if it's established before (or even roughly at the same time) it can be valid.
Shrek: "Just don't look down."
Donkey: "SHREK! I'm looking DOWN!"
He-he, Looks like Shrek knows the rules of the cartoon world the best!
@@RichrobArtYT lol true...
I always wanted Wile E. Coyote to at least SUCCEED ONCE because it’s annoying how the physics only work in favour of roadrunner
If I recall correctly, Wile E. Coyote did catch the Road Runner once, but he didn't have any idea on what to do next because he never thought he'd ever do it.
@@solaris9426 ... in a Family Guy cutaway gag.
@@solaris9426 I think it was a time where the Roadrunner grew to Godzilla size or Wile E was reduced to mouse size. I remember him going like Aha! and grabbing the bird's ankle, looking up, maybe Roadrunner looking down unfazed, then holding up signs like "Well I finally caught him" "Now what do you want me to do with him?"
Edit: 1980 Merrie Melody cartoon "Soup or Sonic", ends with the signs, "Okay, wise guys, you always wanted me to catch him." and "Now what do I do?"
He probably would have won his court case if that movie ever got released
@@monke7919 Coyote wins in a total of 5 episodes across the entirety of Roadrunner cartoons. So, no. Everything resets as always. The show is episodic, not serialized.
2:02 i love that you used home alone for "if in real life" when that movie operated on looney tunes physics
Those stunts were real. Not even joking. There's interviews with the stunt actors and everything. It was *_wild_* back in the day.
The director even said he was a little scared of them because they'd just actually do those crazy stunts and just get back up like it was nothing.
@@EmilyDugan-re2wg i'm not saying they weren't real. I'm saying marv taking an iron to the face and coming out with an imprint on his face or harry burning his hand on the doorknob and coming out with just an imprint on his hand is cartoon logic.
Everyone makes these videos about how the hell they survive all these traps. And here I am thinking about it and I go "wait a minute! this is all looney tunes!" Once you realize that, everything makes sense.
I cringe every time Daniel Stern takes that clothes iron to the face.
Ok but watching a guy step on broken ornaments and the other guy getting hit in the head repeatedly with a brick is still mildly uncomfortable.
Let's also not forget the "Plausible Impossible", the rule that it has to SEEM explainable and be grounded in rules of reality, despite being impossible. "The most hilarious comedy is grounded in reality."
Laws can be broken only if there are laws. And it is understandable and funny only it those are real-life laws we all know.
Tom and Jerry episodes were at their peak when the two teamed up to get a common goal accomplished. Not always the funniest episodes, but they genuinely work well together and complement each other in ways that are genuinely wholesome and inspiring.
Yeah i really loved those ones, especially the episodes where they both stay buddies after the conflict was resolved
Yes
I love how "physics" in this realm more reflect ethics than actual physics
There's also the factor of comedy... If the audience expects one thing, only for something completely different to happen, its hilarious.
Then why are so many cartoons still funny on subsequent viewings, even though you know exactly what's going to happen?
@@agentzapdos4960 I said it was a _factor,_ not the ONLY thing that makes it funny.
In an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, Granny taught the whole "don't look down" ordeal to the kids.
It was Elmer Fudd
That show in its own way is self-reflecting because of the instances when the classic Looney Tunes characters show up and teach the new generation the rules of being a "toon".
Not gonna lie when I saw the title I thought you were going to talk about some crazy theoretical physics on why gravity only works when we look at it.
Me to
Yeah no shith, I legit thought this video is gonna blow my mind
There are some philosophical ideas that state that things only exist because we agree they exist. Theoretically, under such a system,gravity would only work if you believe you SHOULD be effected by gravity
@@WilliamAaronTheYapmaster So like the Elder Scrolls, they have this very system. Any creature on Mundus that did not believe fell off long ago.
@@lunyxappocalypse7071 Makes sense to me
Never thought about cartoons in this way, this explains why they are so genius
I was expecting a physics lesson but instead got a psychology lesson
Ethics
A pretty good video!
Also, I would like to add that another aspect that determines cartoon logic is the attitude that a character has about their lot in life, which also influences how many negative things will happen to them.
Donald Duck becomes a butt-monkey because of his short temper and being prone to brute force problems that cause his notorious bad luck. Tom becomes one when he wants to enjoy his life in bliss all the time, but gets constantly interrupted by annoyances done by Jerry which culminates in him wrecking the peace he could have had by simply not making it an issue (though that depends on the cartoon since he sometimes gets forced into it). A character like Bugs Bunny doesn't often become a butt-monkey because he is the most self-aware toon that can adapt to what is going on in the moment, so he understands how to bend reality to his will. Sometimes characters that are completely clueless about what's going on around them like Mr. Magoo don't even get affected by the cartoon world since they are too detached and naive to be affected by it.
In a way it's a bit of a reflection of reality, since your personality can vastly change the outcome of what happens in your life. The difference being that cartoons exaggerate those in several ways to make the feelings more bombastic and by making people laugh at others' and possibly their own shortcomings.
the road runner is the ultimate example of clueless protagonist lol
@@TheSTEMAlchemistHe’s just minding his own business
It’s all tied up in Narrative Causality. Nothing happens unless the author intervenes or the character expects it to happen.
The clip shown at 8:10 was literally the first thing I thought about when you said "As soon as a cartoon character feels like they are going to win, it comes back around to bite them, every single time."
I wanted to make a cartoon with a combination of realistic physics and cartoon physics (from both eastern and western animations, as well as others), both of which have a certain scientifically-tangible order to them, which most of the characters use to their advantage and cleverly optimise for practical outcomes.
Then I see this.
Great now I'm hopeless
Well, since this is about to get 100 likes (at 99), I typed some more detailed thoughts about it in a reply. I've come to a compromise which I wrote at the bottom
Not necessarily. The diskworld series does that with story logic, so you can probably do it with cartoon physics.
Remember that humility is the key to success, and you sound like you just looked down. Success is just one strut-of-faith away for you now!
A more internally consistent explanation for cartoon physics that you could use from a Watsonian perspective is that it follows whatever the character in question expects to happen, if only temporarily. If you don't know you're in the air, you'll expect to continue moving forward until you realize your situation, delaying your fall. Roadrunner doesn't know there's a painting in his way, so he can continue on down the imaginary road, but Wile E. Coyote, who set up the trap in the first place and therefore expects it to work, runs into the painting as normal. And so on and so forth.
Nah you got it bro it don’t really need to make any sense
My main problem regarding the insanity of cartoon physics is that really I want my cartoon/animation series to cover lots of topics, including technical/scientific and complex/realistic ones, and if I get too wacky, I'll either have to make the cartoon physics a non-diegetic design choice, which in some cases I don't want since I want the characters to be able to exploit them, or I'll just have to accept that it's the way things are and create a convoluted system of everything, biological and systemic, that attempts to work around it, and even though it might be pretty farfetched, I don't really want it to be _too_ unrealistic, in spite of all the fancy stuff it'll have. I want it to be a decent reflection of troth reality, fantasy and futurism.
In particular, here are my thoughts about some points that the video covers:
-Emotional truth. I don't need cartoon physics to convey those. In fact, I've imagined how I could communicate extremely intense emotions without thinking about those at all, involving stuff like visceral sound design, expressions, behaviours and visual representations. So the cartoon aspects would just be supplementary, and they'd all be plausible to some degree.
-Butt-monkeys. I do want some characters to feel that way, but having a lot of characterisation focused on this would lead to a lot of tropic one-dimensionality with one character being consistently hurt and garnering sympathy. Making it a diegetic mechanic would also substantiate the notion that the world is out to get them, and while I do want to cover this for some characters, I want to have a diverse variety of changing perspectives, including experiences of unbalanced treatment.
-Karma. The bad guys need to be capable, generally competent and actually dangerous in some way, because otherwise there's not a credible threat, and there's nothing for us to learn for or from overcoming them, so I'll only apply this when it would realistically make sense with intrinsic consequences that can be reasonably ignored or unforeseen. Also, I do want to communicate the existence and dynamics of unfairness, including cases of systematic oppression, so this is generally something I'll skip.
-And overconfidence. There are many adults who suffer from it (and should do in the series), and not many of the characters would be significantly mentally challenged (i.e. total idiots who don't learn when something is unignorably obvious). If the rule applied universally, they would have learnt about the principle when they were a young child and worked with it, either by adopting the appropriate humility and/or caution, or anxiety, paranoia, low self-esteem, and overall poor mental health, which would also lead to the perception that the world is out to get them. Some characters should also be raised with it, fraudulently out of living a childhood of pandered luxury (who can be proven wrong by being introduced to tough situations), or substantially by being critical and competent (who can be proven wrong by being overconfident about the universality of patterns and systems they've identified), in order to foster the perception that everything goes their way if they just persist enough. Not only that, but if it was universally punished, evolution would have disfavoured it, and since it exists, it needs to at least appear substantial to many people. It should be more like a rubber band than a universal bug-patcher, and having it that way would pay off a lot more at the end.
So, I decided to make a compromise. I'll make a list of cartoon principles and events, and for the main world I'll include anything that doesn't cause anything significantly outlandish to happen. Those things would include major body transformations and disfigurations (cartoon-wise), sudden unexplained changes of how physical phenomena work based solely on the characters (discriminatory physics), and so on. However, I will make a lot more exceptions in dream sequences, which will be the boundary where wacky cartoon physics and surrealism can shine - though there will be some level of sense, morality and psychological nuances to them, since everything that happens in the foreground of a story must have some relevance. For that reason, many of the dreams will be consciously administered with technology for things like therapy and recreational purposes, so it can serve the characters and the story, rather than just have the natural neural network splutterings you generate in REM sleep :P
"i know this defies the laws of gravity, but you see, i never studied law"
such a perfect line
The overconfidence is a nice way to view the cartoon physics though the earlier part of the video didn't answer much. Some cartoons didn't have butt-monkeys or were full of them and the cartoon physics can just occur without teaching the characters anything (like "Have you got any Castles").
Also there's a Wile E Coyote gag where he goed through the painting but not the roadrunner
In How a Mosquito Operates, the Mosquito becomes the cause of his own downfall when he drinks more from the human’s body than he actually needs
I thought this was going to be about scenarios where cartoon physics is actually similar to real life physics, but honestly this is better.
I think the classic roadrunner tunnel gag is probably simillar to how flash can move so fast he phases through matter and I guess road runner runs at that speed.
AfterDark had a screensaver about the rules of Cartoon Laws of Physics.
-Anything falls faster than an ANVIL.
-You won't fall unless you look down.
etc.
7:27 when something comes up that gets the better of what you thought you were the best at... is pride before the fall.
My favorite cartoon physic gags might have to be the painting gags and the bait and switch
Looney Toons Loonaversity: General HOGspital
“ Amazing how much imitatable cartoon violence they show in the 1940s.” -The Fairly OddParents
Reminds me that my grandfather could not stand loony tunes for that reason.
This video has some oddly terrifying cosmic implications
I'm using this in my Grade 8 class as a teaching tool - thank you!!
Law of story physics number five: I am in complete agreement with this one. Used to see this happen a lot in Richie Rich.
Dollar would always think of a scenario, but during its execution, it never turns out how he thought.
Like, why would an animator animate the same thing twice in a row?
When I was a kid, I had a dream where I jumped into the air and was floating until I looked down.
I remember an episode of Tiny Toons. A rare moment of the cast attending class at the school the intro alludes to taking place. Porky was teaching the phenomenon of walking off a ledge and they would stay in midair until looking down, demonstrating as he walked off his desk, looked down, and fell about 2 1/2 feet to the ground
I think cartoon physics are a metaphor for "shit happens" in life. Cartoon physics is unpredictable, and so are many things in life like the natural environment and public opinion that we can't control. These things are inherently neutral, they may push you forward, and they may set you back, but our attitude to these factors will ultimately determine what they are. If someone overestimates themselves, and think they can control the uncontrollable, they will inevitably find the natural world to be against them in everything they do.
Falling after looking down is actually quite logical conclusion deduced from idealism.
I know one wile e coyote where he caught the roadrunner in the “impenetrable box”
But when he tried to eat the roadrunner, he realized: the road runner is in the impenetrable box.
So he opens it, and somehow falls in getting stuck. Well he caught it, but couldn’t rly do anything about it after the fact.
So the exception to the gravity rule is, as long as you think to yourself "I fucked up" you are able to get back onto solid ground?
Alternatively, since gravity only seems to assert itself when a character looks down, they could theoretically walk across a gap by just not looking down.
@@solaris9426 Thats how bridges are made, by confident jackass's who think " I'm so good at this 'humidity' thing, I don't even need this bridge, but I'm building it because my jackass friends need it! "
"you are able to get back onto solid ground?"
That part will happen pretty definitely :D
So long as the audience expects you to fall, you won't, but if you subvert the audience's expectations, convince them that falling doesn't apply to you, you come crashing down.
The road runner for example. Coyote sets up a trap where the road runner will surely fall. Cartoon physics disallows it. But when Coyote tries to follow road runner, the audience and Coyote has no idea what to expect, so he falls.
You know, I never thought it that way 😅
You sure deserve thousands of views
The man in the moon looked down one day ... and the moon plunged to Earth. The physics of hubris.
This is wild, the fact that there’s actually structure to the cartoons. I can appreciate this as an adult and I will definitely view cartoons with a different perspective now. Great video.
Road Runner cartoons had a literal set of rules about how they were to be written. They broke from that exactly once that I'm aware of, because that was to establish the gag being "Well, now I caught the Road Runner, what now?" as an acknowledgement of the rule that Wile E can't catch the Road Runner. Among others I remember are:
The Road Runner can only cause harm to Wile E by saying 'Meep Meep' and the results there of. (Thus limiting the Road Runner while keeping a running gag going.)
Wile E fails either because of Acme products backfiring or his own bad decisions, barring the above. (Thus keeping the fault for failure from being pure luck.)
It must always be clear that Wile E Coyote could stop at any time, he is always the one keeping the chase going. (Thus ensuring it is his fault.)
0:06 this is newton s second law, and also looking down makes you travel down.
"Gravity does not work until you look down" -Newtom
I’m glad you made this video! As I look back on my own experiences in the last decade, I know that the spiritual side of this very thing has come to fruition ten times over. This video may be focusing on cartoons, but the choice we’ve made absolutely affect our lives in these very same ways, just usually it’s internal and not physical. The cartoons describe how we feel as if it were physically observable.
You explained it perfectly and answered many of my childhood questions
4:21 “We enjoy their suffering.” - BigBlueBackpack 2023
Thats true
... sadly
I’m more impressed by how This man successfully justified cartoon logic
One could say that... "Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer"
Bugs Bunny's excuse for defying the law of gravity always cracks me up. "...I never studied law!"
Another common feature of a cartoon antagonist is that they intend to kill and eat the good guy, so that's a very appropriate karmic mark against them imo
I love the values that are implied with how the cartoons are designed. Really neat! Thanks for pointing that out.
I think there was a Tiny Toon Adventures episode that talked about toon physics.
Yup, there was! I remember that episode. :P They used the "You only fall when you look down" to escape "wackyland" I think.
This also returns in the tiny toon university reboot.
One of the best narrative analysis I've ever seen
I clicked on this video expecting to learn about some bizarre real life physical phenomena, not about cartoon semiotics.😊
You should watch the original Tiny Toon Adventures series. They explain a lot about cartoon mechanics as they learn at the Looniversity. Also, it is usually the underdog who has the advantage. The Prey has the advantage over the predator; the cute one has the advantage over the scary one. The best ones will still lose sometimes, like Bugs Bunny & Mickey Mouse. The worst ones never loose, like Screwy Squirrel & Slap Happy Slappy.
My immediate thought is why did it take us so many years
Great piece! Adding to that, i also thought that you can always continue when you're high above the ground, but when you look down, that's when fear kicks in and ruin everything
Okay is nobody going to talk about the fact that he literally clickbaited us ...
No, because he explained how cartoon physics work in the context of the cartoon. Title of the video didn't mean real life.
To me that was the golden age of cartoons
Most people agree the golden age of cartoons was during the 30's-60's
@@sonicfanboy3375
'40s and '50s. The '30s was a growing period, and the '60s saw animation experience severe budget cuts.
@@fictionalmediabully9830 Those cuts resulted in more choppy animation and sometimes characters being painted in the wrong colours.
Just discovered the reason for my fear of waffles
"Why do cartoons do this", you ask?
Well, that's easily answered.
*Because it's funny.*
These impossible physics are often the punchline to a joke.
That's why.
*Not everything has a deeper hidden meaning behind it.*
Take the scene at (1:22)
Bugs standing tied on the diving board - while Sam is sawing off the board.
That scene creates tension. How do you release this tension again?
By letting Sam fall into his own trap _(quite literally in this case)._
That's called a "comic relief".
What would have been the alternative in that scenario?
Letting Bugs fall into the abyss?
Where would be the fun in that?
The only possibility to save that scene (Bugs falling), would have been to let something happen during his fall, which - _on the one hand_ - saves him, and - _on the other hand_ - punishes Sam.
But all that would have needed to be drawn and animated.
Why waste time and resources on such an elaborate scene, if you can reach your goal _(= giving your audience a good laugh)_ by simply letting the impossible happen _(the board with Bugs stays up, the diving tower with Sam falls down)?_
This was a very nostalgic video for me. It brought back memories of so many Saturday mornings during the 80’s. I don’t think I’ve had many times in my life as happy as those Saturday mornings were.
Yoo that “take one step on that rope and I’ll cut it” scene always takes me out
Can we take a moment to appreciate how wonderfully animated these cartoons were and how imaginative the gags were?
A popular theory states that Tom and Jerry are actually best friends, and Tom’s owner wants him to catch and kill mice, so Tom pretends to try his best, but he is actually letting Jerry get away. But why is Tom not catching Jerry? Well, they’re best friends, and best friends protect each other. If Tom visibly never tried, he would be replaced with a cat that would actually WANT to kill Jerry.
Well that depends.Considering the cartoon is not episodic.Most would have Tom and/or jerry actively trying to kill each other even if Tom's owner told them.A main example is Hatch up your troubles.If chopping up your buddy with a axe is friendly,The shooting their nephew is just plain good will.Again these shorts can change/depnend and that's just a theory
I'm just gonna live in a cartoon now
Can't fall if I never look down
I can explains Cartoon Physics as non-newtonian Physics that doesn't requires exotic matter or magical energy to work
Even Einstein points out that space and time can stretch.
I... literally just searched up for Gear 5 Luffy 💀💀💀
Considering what ot does, close enough I guess ?
@@cedriclacomblez9827 I mean, Toon Force I guess 💀
Works for the last rule, Luffy takes his opponents overconfidence and proceeds to put all his foes into their place
@@krealyesitisbeta5642
*Tom* = (Any of his major enemies like Enel, Lucci, Doffy, or Kaido.)
*Jerry* = Luffy (The mouse who his enemies think of as an annoying "rat")
@@littlejohndvlogger7050 more like an annoying "monkey" yohohohoho
6:18 That Shotgun sound 🤣
I think one of the best explanations comes from Roger rabbit, he couldn’t do it any time, only when it’s funny.
He even puts his hand back in the cuff right before getting called out.
4:15 you missed the golden opportunity to say "seeing Goofy being goofy"
Amazing video, wish it was a little longer.
I've never thought about the fact that cartoons NEED to exaggerate their actions in order to help the viewer empathize and understand the feelings of the character.
Should have taken a left turn at Albuquerque.
It's the Rule of Funny; like entropy in our universe, in the cartoon universe funny things have bigger odds of happening because of physics.
Honestly, I feel like they should go back to putting this on tv broadcasts. It would save millions of kids from LankyBox.
The way you ended the video was so seamless, S rank video
The gravity thing makes no sense as every character including the butt-monkey will realize they’ve made the mistake but won’t be able to simply float back to safety.
Congrats brother, this was an amazing video.
Really on point, keep it up and you will grow
In a lucid dream, you can do anything you genuinely believe you can do. The moment you question your own ability, a more realistic perspective kicks in.
We need a web series that is just a normal person who gets sucked into a classic cartoon, and they have to use cartoon logic to find their way home
you truly deserve the sub, immaculate work, truly inspiring and uplifting seeing small creators make such awesome and well produced content, gives me the boost of hope i need
You have yourself a new subscriber
8:14 "When I do something selfish, it's funny. When you do it, it's evil."🤔
-Emperor Kuzco
Luffy gear 5 got me here
Same lol
Goofy is almost an anti-butt-monkey... He constantly brings trouble on himself but somehow the crazy sequence of coincidences that ensues ends up working out in his favour.
9:35 "Oh, it's okay. We haven't studied gwavity yet."🤣
didn't think cartoons were that deep
7:54 Daffy thlams his penith in the car door (1962, colorized)
I personally always felt sorry for Tom and found the cartoon Tom and Jerry very unfair towards Tom. I mean, most of the time Tom is just trying to have a peaceful time and Jerry is the one who disturbs him. I'd watch Tom and Jerry just to see an episode where there's some sort of happy ending, in favour of Tom preferably.
1:01 - Yeah, same…! I honestly wished I watched L Tunes more, but I guess younger me really preferred the dialogueless.!.!
My mother was working as a teacher in the kindergarten here in the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia back then), and she said that when they took children to the cinema to see Tom and Jerry the first time many years ago, all the children left the cinema crying. Because they were not used to see such violent scenes in cartoons before.
1:42 audience will accept as long as Neil deGrasse Tyson does not come long and ruin the fun
i think this is what sorta gets under my skin when it comes to this kinda slapstick stuff the main takeaway in this is that the second you start believing in yourself the entire universe wants you dead
So as long as you have no over-confidence, you can and will bend reality itself
Always loved that line. "I know this defies the laws of gravity, but you see... I never studied Law."
how does this not have more views?
I just realized that this video was more about the principles and philosophies of cartoon characters than actual cartoon physics and effects.🤔
Actually, I can vouch for gravity not existing until the character looks down. I was once climbing a wooden ladder and a rung broke. I noticed the rung was broken and I was not falling. I was able to look around and take the whole scene in. I start to fall after a moment, but only after I looked down. Before I looked down, it honestly seemed like I was standing on thin air as I was able to notice the rung was broke, know what was about to happen (the fall), notice my position on the ladder and where I should fall, notice my surroundings, etc. Based on that experience, cartoon falling is exactly how I fall.
This was an analysis I didnt know I needed. I learned so much, great video!!!